Neurotransmitters Flow in this Autism Mind

How Two Mischievous Deer and a Fawn took over a backyard!

(a humorous skit on the backyard deer seen in from my Nashville home)

How Two Mischievous Deer and a Fawn took over a backyard!

One sunny afternoon, two majestic deer with large antlers, Antler McDeerface and Staggy McStagface, stepped out of the woods to grub on some clover grass in somebody's backyard.

Simple Beginnings

Got my own personalized Labcoat at the Simple Beginnings Ceremony today for incoming PhD students.

The term Simple Beginnings is taken from the end of Darwin's epic work as he has had such an impact on scientific thinking in the last 150 years.

This labcoat is so beyond cool. A labcoat for me symbolizes access to mainstream education.

Grad school is intense which super exciting and metaphorical fingers crossed I can succeed and get to do meaningful, ethical and impactful research (metaphorical as fingers crossed is not an easy motor-planning movement for me)

Image 1: Program head Dr Bruce Carter at podium announcing each student and their research interests. Kate Stuart, (Director of strategic affairs and events with Biomedical Research Education and Training) putting on my personalized lab coat. putting on my personalized lab coat. Audience and other students lined up in foreground.

Image 2/3. Sitting in audience before/after I got lab coat. Close up.of labcoat with my name embroidered. Other side of coat says Vanderbilt school.of medicine.

California Magazine

https://alumni.berkeley.edu/california-magazine/2022-fall/i-am-a-minimally-speaking-person-who-was-not-expected-to-go-to-college-now-hes-getting-his-phd/

DREDF Spotlight

This month is Disability Rights. Thrilled to be on the same board with the likes of living disability legends like Judy Heumann. What an honor to be invited.

https://mailchi.mp/dredf/dredf-monthly-august-22

Hari Srinivasan joins the DREDF Board of Directors.

Hari Srinivasan just moved from Berkeley to Nashville, but we're lucky that he's staying connected to Berkeley by joining DREDF's Board of Directors. Hari has autism and ADHD with very limited speech ability, and primarily uses Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) to communicate. He is a Ph.D. Neuroscience student at Vanderbilt University, a PD Soros Fellow, and a Fellow at the Frist Center for Autism and Innovation. Hari graduated from UC Berkeley in 2022 as a University Medal Finalist, along with a Departmental Citation Award, Highest Honors, Phi Beta Kappa, and Psi Chi. As an undergraduate Haas Scholar, he carried out a year-long independent funded research on awe and empathy in autism. He also served as student president of the Berkeley campus organization Autism: Spectrum at Cal, stressing the idea of autism needing to go beyond mere Awareness, Acceptance, and Inclusion and towards Belonging. Hari's other affiliations include serving on the board of the Autistic Self-Advocacy Network, and as a Non Federal Committee member of the Interagency Coordinating Committee (IACC). He is also a member of the Council of Autistic Advisors for the Autism Society of America and sits on the Community Advisory Board for The Brain Foundation.

Sense Lab - Social Emotional NeuroScience Endocrinology

Fall Semester was a lab rotation with Dr Corbett at the SENSE Lab

(Social Emotional NeuroScience Endocrinology)

First day at the lab with my PI, Prof Blythe Corbett

My name on the office door!!

Imagine I get an office!!

with Sense Lab mates.

https://senselab.vkcsites.org/

This time last year

This time last year. 8/25/21: First day of class in final year of undergrad at UC Berkeley

Grad School Orientation @ Vanderbilt

Day 1 of Grad student Orientation

New Beginnings

Day 6 of Instagram takeover @pdsoros

New Beginnings

Image Description: background of flower and leaves.

Headshot photo of young man with black hair, black eyes and brown skin.

New Beginnings and next steps:

Grad School at Vanderbilt + PD Soros Fellowship.

Image Description; Red Brick Building with signage which reads "Vanderbilt University"

Small figure standing in front of the sign.

A proud & beaming Srinivasan thatha (grandpa) in new college swag. Wish my other late thatha was around to see this new beginning too!!

A young man of South Asian origin standing next to his older grandfather.

Fellow neuroscience grad students at Vandy.

Image Descriptions; A group of students looking at the camera.

Graduate TA training this week

A lot to think over.

TA-ship will definitely look different for me.

Screenshot that says: TAO welcome to Center for Teaching's Teaching Assistant Orientation

A personalized embroidered PhD Lab Coat

awaits me and a Neuroscience Retreat

I get to add more pebbles that help widen ripples in the Pond of Change as

Fellow, Frist Center for Autism & Innovation at Vanderbilt

To kick off, I will be taking Prof Keivan Stassun’s NISE (Neurodiversity inspired Science & Engineering) course this fall.

My summer comes to an end.

Classes at Vandy start next week!!

Pebbles in the Pond of Change

https://instagram.com/pdsoros

In case you don't have instagram

Day 5 of instagram takeover @pdsoros

Pebbles in the Pond of Change: Reflections on Advocacy

Image Description: Photo of a young man with brown skin, black hair or South Asian origin.

Background shows small falling pebbles creating ripples in the water below.

I did attempt to march in a Climate Change protest on campus.

But not everyone can march in protests (sensory overload/ social anxiety) or be a powerful orator (communication challenges). When you are disabled, you may have to reimagine what advocacy looks like for you. There are many many ways to contribute.

Image Description: A large group of college age students gathered and marching on grounds of a college campus, holding up banners. The banner in the foreground reads "We need climate action now!"

High School example. Editor, AccessBraille Magazine.
This quarterly free magazine with articles written by disabled & nondisabled teens in the US, was printed in braille & accompanied braille teaching kits that volunteers carried to remote parts of Africa and Asia. In some parts of mountainous Nepal, volunteers traveled on donkeys. Later, it made its way to Bookshare and the Perkins School for the Blind. Audio versions were also available.

Image Description: A pink cover book with title "The Reading Finger"

Background image: a falling pebble, creating ripples in the water below

I think of everything I’ve gotten to do as small pebbles that widen ripples in the Pond of Change

Background Image: many small falling pebbles, creating ripples in the water below

During my Berkeley years, I got to contribute more such pebbles.

One pebble was getting to write over 50 articles including a weekly column on autism.

To my rather immense surprise, that time, people were finding what I was writing to be useful. I was getting emails from around the world.

Image Description: 1. Photo of a young man with brown skin, black hair or south asian origin with the words The Daily Californian on top and Hari Srinivasan underneath. 2. Photo of a folder newspaper with the words The Daily Californian and "History of Activism inspires Disability Advocacy" on it.

Background Image: falling pebbles, creating ripples in the water below

Student Instructor, Autism Class. Another example of a pebble was creating and leading an autism class where the enrollment grew from 17 to 50. It was so impactful to hear from a student in Europe that what she had learned in class was influencing her grad school research.

Background Image: a falling pebble, creating ripples in the water below

Application of Education. More pebbles: Much of what I was learning in class also found applications in talks & articles. Fueled by Prof Matt Walker's class on Sleep - Autism: The Search for Restorative Sleep. Fueled by Prof Allison Harvey and Prof Steve Hinshaw's class: Standard of Care for Mental Health in Autism.

Background Image: a falling pebble, creating ripples in the water below

Outside of college too, I get the opportunity to add more small pebbles through the numerous orgs and projects I’m involved in - IACC, ASAN, ASA, DREDF.

Background Image: falling pebbles, creating ripples in the water below

The Point: Every small pebble on our part can help widen ripples in the pond of change.

Background Image: falling pebbles, creating ripples in the water below

I will end with a quote from a person I am in deep admiration of, legendary disability civil rights activist, Judy Heumann, who I finally got to meet last month.

“Change never happens at the pace we think it should. It happens over years of people joining together, strategizing, sharing, and pulling all the levers they possibly can. Gradually, excruciatingly slowly, things start to happen, and then suddenly, seemingly out of the blue, something will tip.” - Judy Heumann

Image Description:

Neuroscience Retreat

ADA 32 in DC

Was a honor to be part of group invited to attend formal reception hosted by Vice President Kamala Harris at her residence, Naval Observatory, in DC, to celebrate ADA 32 and get to meet and interact with so many luminaries.

What can I say. OMG.

Photo 1: Vice President Kamala Harris and Mr Emhoff.

Photo 2: Attorney General Merrick Garland

Photo 3: Senator Tom Harkin (who was chief sponsor of the Americans with Disabilities Act in 1990)

Photo 4: Got to meet my hero in-person, Judy Heumann, the legendary disability civil rights activist. In deepest admiration and awe of the grueling efforts of her generation that helped open the doors of inclusion and opportunity for the current generation of disabled folks like me.

Photo 5: Me just hanging out with the flags, quite wide-eyed at my surroundings and the people I was surrounded by and got to interact with. Was honestly quite stunned to receive a White House event invite.

(Image Descriptions: work in progress....)